Rings In A Dish
by Itty Bitty Albatross
Summary: The thing is. The thing is, fatal flaws aren't always just that. They're good things, too, sometimes, but most of the time they're naught but another characteristic, a driving force behind the person that claims them. Percy/Annabeth/Nico.


**Monday the 12****th****. **

_Hubris._

Pride meant so, so much to Annabeth. It meant more than it should and she knew it but that didn't make it easier to turn from, so sometimes she wondered, 'why bother?'.

It was pride that made her speak cuttingly to Nico on that day, that summer after the war, when she was still at camp because she was helping to design new cabins.

He told her a secret, asked a question, and she didn't think about it because she wasn't going to lower herself to that level.

She was above that.

"Yes." She cut him off mid-sentence, breaking her own rules about interrupting.

That was the last time she put herself before Percy, in matters of the heart, or so she told herself. She said she was protecting the both of them, and even believed it up until a couple of hours later, when she drilled with a knife in the arena and spied a dark, skinny figure walking towards the trees with a duffel bag of everything he owned before he twisting away into the shadow under a tree. It was only then she began to ask herself, 'was I protecting Percy, or myself?'.

It came back to haunt her the next day, when Percy walked up and pressed a kiss to her forehead, fondly brushing her hair back, and he asked "Have you seen Nico? Someone said he was looking for me yesterday."

She could've lied, said no, deflected, and he never would have known because he trusted everyone as instinctively as breathing. But she didn't, and that hurt him enough, because she would-couldn't-say why it was she had told Nico to leave and he looked at her a little differently, afterward.

_Obsessions. _

See, the problem was that Nico had been told his fatal flaw was holding grudges, but that wasn't it, not quite.

His fatal flaw was obsessions.

For a while that was Bianca, the constant ache of her in every corner of his heart, because she had left when she was all he had left and even if she had stayed, he knew she wouldn't have been enough, but he loved her, damn it, and hell would freeze over before he gave up that easily. He had little respect for death and all his companions, didn't see the end of a life with all the finality that saner people did.

In an overlapping time, there was the hero who saved him and broke him and saved him again. And Nico had only asked for one thing, just one thing, because he didn't want to be safe or happy or content right then, he'd only wanted to know Bianca was.

If anyone could keep her safe it was Percy, and Nico wanted her safe, even though she hadn't wanted him.

Just when he was starting to think everything was going to be okay again, that he had a _family_, Percy had turned up and been all 'Sorry, your sister who raised you and was the only person (alive) who could stand to be around you is dead. Hope you two weren't close, or anything.' And he'd been off on other, bigger problems, leaving Nico standing there.

That was the moment. That was the moment Nico knew he was treading the edges of hell-as-most-people-thought-of-it, because he needed Percy and loved Percy but he loathed Percy with every fiber of his being.

The obsession began.

The obsession led to him, tucked behind a dumpster in an alley he didn't know, shivering slightly because of the cold but mainly because of his own daring and where it had led him. The concrete was unyielding.

_Loyalty. _

Loyalty would be his undoing, he knew it, but it was unimportant because he had the impulse control of a six-year-old on a sugar high and he'd jump off a bridge for someone he loved even if it wasn't worth it in the long run, because it was worth it to him.

And what's more, he inspired loyalty in everyone he met; he was just one of those people that everyone who he interacted with would take a knife for.

It served him good in the war, because he became a figure-head for something that was much bigger than him, just because he was someone's kid and he made it to sixteen.

All those campers, the ones he barely remembered the names of, they took up arms at his word, and the charged when he gave the signal, and they killed and were killed in his name but it was alright, it was worth it, because Percy was going to put an end to it all.

Percy gave it back, two-fold, because he would bleed and suffer for his family, even the ones he didn't know more than a face spotted for a second on the other side of a street.

So when Annabeth said she'd told Nico to leave camp but wouldn't say what he'd done that'd been wrong, he nodded. He wasn't happy with that or her, but they were dating and he loved her too much to say 'You can't do that' or 'You have no right' because she clearly could, and she did, didn't she?

**Saturday the 27****th****. **

_Hubris._

She wasn't proud because she knew there wasn't something left to be that proud of.

It was her who told Percy she needed a break, because she was just getting her head wrapped around the idea of a future after years of not being able to think past a certain number of years for fear it wouldn't happen, would never be in her grasp. Then the gods finished with their pawns and the prophecy was finished and those that had made it were chucked out into the real world to deal with little struggles like taxes and classes.

It had been the Thursday prior when Malcolm had been packing up a bag because he was going to MIT and had asked it, absently, while folding clothes with his back to her.

"So, are you and Percy going to get married someday?"

She'd laughed it off and started talking about what she wanted him to write back about from school.

Then she'd had a mini-panic attack in the girls' bathroom.

Doubled over, rubbing soothing circles into her own chest, she'd thought about how normal seventeen-year-old's who loved each other like her and Percy did and had gone through everything they'd gone through might have seen that coming, considered it.

She hadn't. Why hadn't she? Why was the idea terrifying? What was wrong with her?

She'd wanted Percy for so long, since she was seven and hadn't even known who he was but still waited on baited breath for him to show up.

Something was missing, and she felt it like a hole in her chest. She loved him and he loved her and it wasn't enough.

That's what she told him, because he deserved the truth.

She told her dad something like that, when she showed up on his doorstep, mascara streaked down her cheek that she refused to acknowledge.

And it cracked something in her chest, behind her sternum, when Chiron messaged and said, "Percy's missing."

_Obsessions._

When Nico saw her, he told Chiron to send her home, make her leave for her own good, because she looked haggard and terrified, calling anyone who might know where the boy she (the both of them, actually) loved had vanished on a routine check of safe-places across the state.

As it turns out, she said the same thing to Chiron about him, when he passed out after yet-another shadow-travel to somewhere to check, to see if Percy had shown up, even if he said he'd stay away from Percy for the both of theirs' good.

Then she had grabbed his arm and he had struggled for a minute, because for all he knew he was going to be killed violently by her, but then she said 'Stop fighting me, you're staying at mine for the night.' and he stepped right into the car with her.

It was after midnight when he woke up on the couch, in a cold sweat from a nightmare, shaking, and he went to where he remembered the kitchen was. Annabeth was already there, crying silently over a table, and he sat down and something must've given away in his expression because she told him why she had been a bitch and why she needed to know she'd see Percy again because of the hole in her chest she could deal with for the rest of her life just to know he was safe.

Then she had said, "I don't know why you care, you must hate me." and he couldn't wrap his head around that. He hated her, yes, but he hated everyone (himself included) and she was precious. She was precious because of the things she did, like leading people and strategizing and saving everyone and suffering so much for a cause she had doubted at times, and she was precious because of the things people did for her. The first time he saw her he didn't meet her, but there was a manic look in everyone's eyes when they heard she was gone and his sister had died on the quest to save her and some survivalist, instinct part of him had known she was something special to have earned all that.

She was watching him when that ran through his mind like a freight train, and she set her cup down with a solid thunk and the look on her face was shocked, a little scared-intimidated and caught by surprise.

Just when he had shaken his head and opened his mouth to say something stupid, to deflect, she had grabbed his wrist and slowly pulled him up and out the other door, to her bedroom, and that was the first time he had felt comforted in years.

They were going to find Percy, and he'd be left on his own again, with yet another obsession ringing like white noise in his head.

_Loyalty_.

He was out of practice and got knocked out by a monster, woke up after thirty-six hours feeling like shit.

He got back to Camp, reported in, wanting to get home and sleep off the achy-feeling, only to be confronted by Annabeth who shouted at him and then captured his mouth with hers without giving him a chance to tell her he was okay.

He knew that smell, under her collar, but he didn't bring it up because there were a dozen explanations.

But then, he knew that bruise beneath her collarbone, the shape of it when her shirt collar tucked down, because he'd worn an identical one before.

How do you tell someone something like that?

He was loyal to her by never telling her when it happened, and only letting it happen once. The only reason it happened at all was because of loyalty, too; the loyalty to the dark-eyed boy who showed up one day, when Annabeth was gone somewhere and he knew how Nico felt because he wasn't as dim as they seemed to think, and he knew why Annabeth hadn't wanted Nico around camp that summer. Nico had needed to feel loved and Percy loved him, in quantities and qualities he didn't think mattered, and he didn't regret it after even if he regretted that it'd hurt Annabeth when she heard, but he couldn't tell her because loyalty was a fickle bitch.

**Wednesday the 4****th****. **

_Hubris. _

Her pride wouldn't let her keep it a secret.

And her pride wouldn't let her tell him.

So she wrote him a letter. She wrote him how she felt, how much she loved him, how much she needed him. She reminded him of the incomplete, unready feeling she had mentioned. She told him about Nico and how she knew him and Percy had had sex and how her and Nico had had sex and how Nico had looked at her like she mattered, like she wasn't stifled under the shadow of Perseus Jackson. She knew he never wanted her to feel like that, but she did, sometimes. She told him she needed time, was confused, and she needed a strategy. She'd be back in a week.

She left it on the table for him when she went to Mount Olympus. In that week, she'd thought a lot, she cut her hair just below her ears for the whimsy of it, and she called Rachel and had a girl-talk.

Wednesday, she was back at her front door, and she still had no idea of what she was going to do.

_Obsessions._

When Percy messaged Nico, he was walking down the street. He'd figured out that if he kept walking, the Iris-message would sometimes follow, and the mortals would see him talking on a blue-tooth or something. It was better than standing in one spot and talking to thin air, which had already gotten the cops called on him once.

He was half-hoping the Iris-message wouldn't follow, and he could avoid the conversation.

"You slept with Annabeth." Percy apparently decided to forgo the traditional 'hello' and go straight for the jugular.

"So did you." Nico retorted. Damn, this message was following him. Iris liked drama.

"You know what I mean."

"Look, if anyone was taken advantage of in a time of weakness, it was me."

"I'm not saying-"

"It's done, okay?" That hurt, because his two biggest obsessions other than pasta and trains were in love and he wasn't the soft kind of loving person, where he just wanted them to be happy, he was the sharper kind that just wanted them, damn consequences. "I can't take it back."

"I don't want you to."

That made him stop in his tracks, and the little floating screen of Percy's head that Nico had been previously avoiding the eyes of continued on for a second until it realized he was no longer walking down the sidewalk.

"What?"

"Nico," Percy ran a hand through his hair. "I'm tired of compromises. I want to be happy, and I want you to be happy, and I want Annabeth to be happy."

"Go for best two-out-of-three." Nico suggested.

"No." Percy countered. "No compromises."

_Loyalty._

There was a lot of talking not done that day. Percy was watching a children's show on the television when Annabeth opened the door and walked in.

"Nico's coming over in a bit." He said simply, holding out an arm, and she tucked herself under it like it was the only place in the world she wanted to be.

"What are we going to do?" She asked, speaking into his shoulder, with the background noise of animated laughter and falling anvils.

"No idea. We'll figure it out." He said simply, and she laughed, probably because it was such a Seaweed Brain plan, that of rushing into battle without a plan or armor. The achy-feeling Percy'd been having in his chest eased up a bit, healing but not healed, like a week-old bruise.

When Nico showed up they talked, until the talking deteriorated into arguing, and Annabeth sank to the floor in frustration and Percy launched himself at Nico and stuck a tongue in his mouth partly just to shut him up and they joined Annabeth on the floor.

The next morning, after several more conversations and arguments and rounds on the floor (and the bed and the table and the couch), Percy decided there was no better people for him to invest himself in.

Put like that, it doesn't sound like much. Three people with big flaws and problems, fucking and laughing and yelling at each other. But for those three, who never expected anything like that, never expected to live to find one person who'd love them even for a while, let alone two, it was special.

For the Greek, three is a good, sound number, anyway.


End file.
